by Joe Hart
We stopped at the building’s wall and looked up. The nearest window was cut through the center of a femur twice the size of a redwood. An idea struck me then, and I put a hand on Fellow’s shoulder to pull him close.
“Could this be the place my family is being held at?” I asked. My hope withered as Fellow shook his head.
“This is a place of legend that only the dead know. The one we seek is beyond here.”
“Think someone’s home?” Kotis asked in a whisper. I shrugged and was about to suggest we not investigate when we heard footsteps from behind.
We spun as one and watched a cowled figure emerge from the path. It was short and humped and wore a frayed brown cloak draped over its head, obscuring any features in the dim light. It walked with a sure steadiness that spoke of many trips in and out of the yard we stood in. The most unnerving thing about the figure, which pushed me back until my shoulders met the solidness of the house, was the bone it carried over one slumped shoulder. It was long and arced like a sickle, and a polished edge that looked sharp enough to cut flesh with ease shone.
The hood shifted and the open darkness beneath the hanging fabric took us in, perhaps seeing us for the first time. It stopped and regarded us for a few long seconds, and then reached up to its cowl. Before the withered hand grasped the hood and drew it back, I saw something move in the darkness where the face hung. There was a shifting, a rearranging of shadows, and then it stilled as the hand pulled the coarse material away.
An old man stood before us, his head smoother than an eight ball, with sallow cheeks that hung down like a hound’s. His lips were dark red and dipped in middle of a smile that appeared warm but made my stomach drop.
The man looked at each of our faces and held steady when he came to mine. Our eyes met, and I realized his were the color of newly formed ice. “Good evening,” he said in a singsong voice that dipped with each syllable. “I didn’t expect guests tonight, but it is a delightful surprise.”
“Hello, we are just traveling through and will not burden you with our presence. We’re sorry to have intruded—” Fellow said, but the old man cut him off in mid-sentence with a wave of his hand.
“It’s no burden at all. I was just out for a walk and in the mood for supper. Will you take part in a dinner?”
“We must be going, we’re expected by friends at the other side shortly,” Fellow said in a steady voice. Inside my head, I sang his praises because of the calm front he portrayed and prayed he could keep it up to get us out of here. Something was wrong, and deep inside me an instinct reserved for survival shouted warnings that kicked my heartbeat into high gear.
“Nonsense,” the old man said, coming closer. “Supper won’t take but a breath, and I can see you’re hungry. Especially this one,” he said, pointing at my chest.
“We’d be very much obliged,” Kotis broke in. The giant stepped in front of me, partially blocking my view of the old man. I saw a flicker of annoyance cross the stranger’s face, and then he smiled again.
“Come inside, friends. You’ll be on the path again in no time.” Instead of leading the way, he motioned to the opposite side of the house, herding us ahead of him. I hoped I wasn’t the only one that noticed how he gripped the sharpened bone over his shoulder tighter as we began to walk.
We made our way around the side of the house, and I studied the walls as we went. The bone was black, and only when I looked closer did I see that it had been burned. The charring was only on the outside of the house, and I could see the whiteness resume where the heat hadn’t reached. A door appeared after a few more steps, and we moved aside to let the old man enter first. His eyes crawled over us as he walked past and threw the door wide without pausing. I felt Fellow grip my arm and tip his head toward the far side of the clearing. Another path led away, through the field, and looked almost identical to the one we had just left.
I understood what he wanted and prepared myself to run, when Kotis’s hand gripped my shoulder. “No, there are things in the bones, I saw them moving behind him when he came near us,” Kotis whispered. My eyes shot to the surrounding walls and searched for movement but saw none. “We have to go in,” he said, and glanced at Fellow to make sure he understood.
“Come in, friends, come in. No need to stand outside,” the old man said from deeper in the house. Fellow hesitated and then nodded his assent. Kotis entered the house, and I followed, with Fellow a few steps behind.
The inside of the house was spacious, the air above us open where a second story might’ve been. Looking up I noticed that the spire on the roof was partially hollow. The walls were bare and white, in stark contrast to their reverse sides. There were no adornments anywhere, and the only furniture was a small table and two chairs in the center of the room. I took one more step and stopped, my guts lurching unpleasantly inside me as I saw what sat in the chairs.
Two human skeletons.
They were bleached whiter than any of the other bones I’d seen, and sat stock-straight, as if they were held to the chairs by invisible strings. Their sightless eyes stared at the opposite wall, and their jaws hung open almost to their breastbones.
My stupor broke with a slamming sound behind us, and I spun to see that the door was shut, the lock turning closed, twisted by an unseen hand.
“Alchemy, magic, whatever you’d like to call it, that’s the center of all things. It’s where it all originated. Flung from the center of the void it came, and I caught the strings of it, pulled it down, and kept it here, inside my head.” The old man stood at a narrow shelf beneath a window, his hands working on something I couldn’t see.
“I guess we don’t rightly follow, sir,” Kotis said as politely as he could. I saw him stretch his shoulders. Scrim’s eyes were trained on the old man’s back.
“No, I wouldn’t think you would. Feeble minds think alike, they say. Addled by weakness, pah! So fitting you should wander here, but delightful for me and my children.”
I took a step back and tried to calm my breathing, which had begun to pick up speed. The old man’s voice changed as he said the last words, gathering depth. My children. I noticed Fellow and Kotis glancing around the room. I searched for something I hadn’t seen when we entered, some kind of weapon or a window low enough for us to climb out of. But there was nothing; not even the sharpened bone was anywhere in sight.
The man turned, and I saw that his eyes were larger and the pupils had disappeared. They were solid gray-blue and filmed with a milky substance. “This, my friends, is what life is about,” he said, holding a glass vial half full of a black fluid. “This is life, but it’s lacking one thing.” The huge eyes found me, and I felt a pull, like something snagging my clothing on a hook. “Enough blood to sustain, not just imitate.”
He tipped his hand and poured a few drops of the liquid onto the skull of the nearest skeleton. The bones on the chair thrashed into life, and a bloodcurdling scream ripped from the tongueless mouth.
All three of us backed away, and I felt the door latch dig into my back. I reached back without turning around, unwilling to look away from the old man, who was not a man at all, and tried to open the door. It was stuck tight, and when I struggled to yank it open, the thing in the cloak laughed in a deep voice. The skeleton he’d poured the mixture on moved with an eerie similarity to real life. It whipped its head from side to side, as if searching for something, and when it opened its mouth again, a panicked voice issued forth.
“Where am I? Oh God, what happened? Alice? Can you hear me? Please, answer me! I can’t see anything!”
The old man wasn’t even remotely human anymore, and I saw that only the two bulging eyes and a wide mouth remained on its face. Dagger-like teeth flashed in blackened gums as it walked around the table and grew taller by the second. “I need all the blood in your body,” it said, pointing a ragged fingernail at my chest. “To make my children whole.”
Kotis launched into motion, and threw a kick at the thing’s chest so fast it wasn’t able to react i
n time. The giant’s foot sank into the brown fabric and met something hard. With a howl, the creature flew backward and nearly fell when its back connected with the table. The skeleton that hadn’t reanimated fell limply to the floor and scattered in several pieces, while the other continued to scream for Alice.
“Window!” Kotis yelled, and shoved Fellow and me toward the far wall, where an open square hung in the bone almost ten feet above the floor.
I ran and stopped below it, looking up at the dim outline that was our only way out. Kotis grabbed me roughly and hoisted me up. I felt like a toddler being tossed into the air by the strong arms of a father. I reached as high as I could and grasped the sill with the tips of my fingers. I strained against the weight of my body, and finally found enough purchase on the smooth wall with my feet to push me higher.
There was a grunt of pain from below, and I looked over my shoulder to see the creature brandishing the sharpened bone in its hands. There was a slick of blood, intensely red on the white of the bone, and I saw Kotis holding his chest. Scrim flapped wildly around the room, and then dove and zoomed straight at the creature’s head. The thing swung its weapon, but it was too slow for the bird. As Scrim passed by its shoulder, I heard the tearing of cloth. A gout of blood spewed from the wide gash near the creature’s throat, and it staggered, holding a palm to the wound, a look of disbelief shining in its enlarged eyes.
“Up!” Fellow cried.
I turned back to the wall. With a yell, I heaved myself up and into the large window. The outside air washed over my face and it had never felt so good. I crouched and turned back, reaching for Fellow, who stood below the window. Our eyes met and he jumped, extending his knurled fingers toward me. Our hands locked and I pulled, surprised by how light he was. I stood and yanked him into the broad window, almost losing my balance in the process. We both looked down at the scene below us.
Kotis circled the border of the round room, while the creature stood at its center swaying the bone sickle in the air. Scrim flapped about and seemed to bide his time for an opening in the thing’s defenses. The wound on the creature’s neck was gone, leaving only a gaping hole in its cowl and unblemished white flesh beneath.
Kotis paused, his eyes shooting up to where we stood. “Go! Leave me!” he yelled, thrusting his arm out in a shooing gesture.
I searched the area around us and saw nothing of use. My eyes traveled up to the ceiling high above, and I saw a few slivers of light around the base of the spire. Something clicked in my mind, and I scrambled out to the edge of the window.
“What are you doing?” Fellow asked, his orange eyes wide with fear.
“Just give me a boost,” I said, reaching out and grasping the overhang of the roof above us. There was just enough of a lip to grab on to, and my fingers found purchase in a cracked bone. I raised one leg and felt Fellow’s hands interlace beneath my foot. At the same time, I pulled and he flung my foot up and away.
I swung out and onto the roof, my upper body landing heavily on the steep incline. The rough contours of bone dug into my ribs and I gasped. Gravity began to do its work, and I lunged higher in one last effort before falling. My hand scrabbled against smoothness, and then clenched on a narrow opening in the roof. I strained as hard as I could, my muscles screaming in protest. My legs slid up and gained footing on the overhang.
A bellow of pain came from below, and I knew Kotis had sustained another injury. I hoped he could hold on a few more seconds. I awkwardly climbed up the roof until I was eye-to-eye with the base of the spire. My assumption had been right. The massive bone was barely fastened in the chimney-like opening of the roof. A few bone wedges jammed into the gap prevented the spire from falling inside.
I worked my fingers into a small space and pulled a wedge free. A vibration rattled the roof and the spire listed to one side several inches. Encouraged, I grabbed another bone and yanked it back and forth until it popped loose with a dry crack. The entire spire slid almost a foot before jamming tight with a short squeal, a long, broken bone stopping its progress. My heart punched the inside of my chest, and I blinked the moisture from my eyes to clear my vision before putting my face down to a crack in the roof.
Kotis shifted slowly from one foot to the other at the far side of the room. A rivulet of blood ran down the inside of his bicep and dripped from the tips of his clenched knuckles. Scrim flitted into and out of my limited field of vision. I strained to see where the creature stood. A flash of bone whipped through the air just below me as the thing slashed wildly at Scrim, who continued to fly in circles. It took another step, and I saw the bald gleam of its skull below.
I snapped the wedged bone sideways, and watched the spire plummet past me.
There was an inhuman screech and then a wet thump, the house vibrating beneath me. The spire’s tip jounced and rattled in the hole left by its base, then broke off and disappeared inside with another dry crash. Dust flew up through the hole, and I coughed, tasting the osseous particles. After a moment I leaned over and peered inside, terrified that I’d missed.
The spire was in two pieces on the floor, as was the creature. The huge bone had caught the thing in the mid-back and punched it to the floor, severing its body in half. Blood washed the dirt in a black fan, and one of the creature’s arms twitched, as if reaching for something.
“Fuck me runnin’,” Kotis said, leaning against the wall, his big hands splayed on the bone behind him. When his eyes looked up and found my face poking through the hole in the ceiling, he smiled. “Nice shot, mate!”
“Thanks,” I said, the shock of the last few minutes grinding into me. I steadied myself and swallowed down the taste of bile in the back of my mouth. Shuddering, I sat on the roof and tried to calm my breathing. I felt sick and triumphant all at once.
Fellow began speaking to Kotis below, telling him to drag a chair closer to the window so he could climb out. Another sound invaded my ears, and I looked around the house for its source. It was a hissing whisper punctuated with short tinkling like a wind chime makes in a soft breeze. I stood and surveyed the path we’d entered from, and saw nothing in the shadow thrown by the high wall of bone. I turned again and looked down the avenue leading out of the yard. Nothing moved there either. The sound continued, and I noticed it came from all sides, the hissing thump and violin scratch getting louder and louder. Then I saw it.
The piles of bones all around the clearing were shifting.
Something moved beneath them, burrowed through them. I saw bones being forced apart and then falling back together with the passage of whatever moved our way.
I found my voice after a second. “Guys! Get the fuck out of the house! Now!” There a pause, and then I heard hurried movement below me. I half walked, half slid down the roof until I perched on the overhang. I scanned the surrounding walls, but I wasn’t high enough to see the progress of whatever drew nearer. I could only listen the rattle and clack of bones from every direction.
Kotis appeared in the window, pulling himself up next to Fellow, and glanced at me. “Swing down, I’ll catch you,” he said, extending his tree-trunk arms.
Without thinking too much about trajectory or speed, I lay down, scooted to the edge of the roof, shimmied my legs over, and swung toward the window. My hands lost their grip, and I let out a terrified squawk reserved for the unique sensation of falling. Kotis snatched me from the air as I passed by the window and pulled me in with ease, setting my feet on the window opening.
“What is it?” Fellow asked, grasping me by the shoulder.
“There are things coming toward us through the bones, they’re everywhere,” I managed.
Fellow looked at Kotis and then at the ground. “We’ll have to jump,” he said.
We were still more than fifteen feet up. With a quick breath, I stepped into the air and fell. The ground flew up and smashed into my feet, sending rivers of pain from my heels to my hair. My legs collapsed and I rolled, remembering to tuck into a ball. The dirt bit into my spine, and then I wa
s back on my feet, trying to catch the breath that had been yanked from my lungs. Fellow and Kotis leapt from the window at the same time, both landing with much more grace than I’d managed.
“Go!” Fellow yelled, and we ran toward the opening on the far side of the clearing. Our feet hammered the ground and blood flew from Kotis’s arm as he pumped it at his side. Scrim zipped past us, flying low without a flap of his wings.
We passed out of the yard and were enveloped by the high walls of the path. I heard a column of bone behind us clatter to the ground and knew whatever chased us was in the clearing. I didn’t dare look back for fear of tripping.
The trail veered left and then right. The wind whipped into my mouth and tore down my throat. Bones shivered and fell away along the incline on our right side, and something wriggled loose. I glanced in its direction and received an impression of a bulky skull working itself loose of the bone field. A few streaks of black, shiny musculature extended from the rear of the skull and stretched to a long spinal cord that slipped free, letting its bulk fall to the path. The thing immediately began to slither in our direction at an alarming speed.
I tore my gaze away from the abomination and increased my pace. Fellow and Kotis raced along beside me, none of us looking back as more bones broke loose of the slopes. My fractured thoughts flew back to the creature’s words in the bone house: my children. Perhaps they knew that their father was dead, killed by the four that fled from them.
All of my thoughts abruptly ended as the wall to our left bulged a few yards ahead of us. A tooth-encrusted snout nosed its way out of the bones, shoving femurs, rib cages, and pelvises aside. It was huge and horse-like, easily twenty feet across at its forehead, and its sabre teeth gnashed at the air as we ran by. The black holes of its eye sockets followed us with paralyzing accuracy, and I had no doubts that it somehow saw us. With a roar that made my eardrums reverberate, it flung itself free of the wall and landed on two long front legs that pulled it forward while its curving spine slid like a giant tail along the ground. The same tendinous striations stretched back and wrapped around its snake-like body.